Northwest Walking Museum

The American Indian Center (AIC), Public Art Group (CPAG), and Portage Park
Neighborhood Association (PPNA) are excited to
announce that Chicago Community Trust has awarded the Great Rivers grant to CPAG
to create two sites for the Northwest Portage Museum (NPM). The project will
connect and highlight the importance of two rivers, the North Branch of the Chicago
River and the Des Plaines Rivers, throughout the city’s history and their significance
today.

The NPM is not a traditional museum with four walls and a roof, but a living,
accessible, outdoor museum featuring multiple art installations and gardens along
historic paths still in daily use by contemporary Chicagoans. NPM will provide
connections that focus on the critical role of our natural waterways, highlighting and
activating the rivers by creating art installations and garden spaces that uplift the voices and stories of
Native-American Peoples, past and present. The approved proposal invites modern
travelers to follow the journey of differnt Native Americans groups as they travelled back and forth
from the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers. The neighborhoods along the pleasant,
pedestrian-friendly trail will add their own histories and voices to the installations
and gardens, building on the history of communities along the rivers.